yellow and white thick-bedded sandstones, the Granton and Craigleith Sandstones[1]. On the other hand, Mr. Henderson, in a recently published paper "On the Wardie and Granton Series of Sandstones and Shales"[2], combats this view, and considers that the sandstones of Craigleith and Granton really underlie the Wardie Shales and form the base of the latter. In the course of his examination of the district, Mr. Henderson has observed at several localities well- marked bands of shale containing marine fossils, as at Woodhall, Dean Bridge, Drumsheugh, Craigleith, and Granton; and from the close identity of the species at these several localities he is led to consider the beds there exposed as occupying much the same position, near the base of the Wardie Shales and above the sandstones of Craigleith and Granton. Omitting all mention of contemporaneous igneous rocks, we come in ascending order to the horizon of the well-known and valuable Burdiehouse Limestone; but as this is without the scope of the present paper, it need not be further referred to here.
So far as I have been able to ascertain, representatives of the Foraminifera, Spongida, Cœlenterata, and Echinodermata have not been recorded from the above rocks. The most likely locality to yield members of either of these divisions will be the bed of marine shale at Woodhall, in the water of Leith, afterwards to be more fully noticed.
Annelida.—In Dr. Hibbert's memoir "On the Freshwater Limestone of Burdiehouse, &c."[3], published in 1836, the occurrence is mentioned, in the fourth section of the paper ("The Microscopic Animals contained in the Limestone of Burdiehouse "), of minute shells with "a sort of spiral organization, by no means unlike that of the Planorbis or Spirorbis." He here clearly refers to the little Annelid named about this time Microconchus carbonarius by Murchison. Hibbert also noticed and figured a little body which he compared to a Nautilus, but remarked its want of septa[4]. The figure
- ↑ Mem. Geol. Surv. Scotl. p. 31.
- ↑ Trans. Edinb. Geol. Soc. 1877, iii. pt. 1, p. 24.
- ↑ Trans. R. Soc. Edinburgh, xiii. p. 169.
- ↑ Loc. cit. p. 181. I consider this little body to be a well-marked variety of Spirorbis carbonarius, Murchison, and offer the following description of it:—
Spirorbis carbonarius, Murch., var. Hibberti, var. nov. Pl. I. fig. 2.
Nautilus, Hibbert, Trans. R. Soc. Edinb. 1836, xiii. p. 151; Rhind, Excursions around Edinb. 1836, p. 35, fig. 14 c.
Var. char. Size exceeding that of the species itself, the last turn of the tube increasing more rapidly; aperture with a sigmoidal or nautiliform margin reflected somewhat back over the umbilicus, which is deep. By following the direction of the surface-striæ the sigmoidal margin can be traced.
Horizon. Beds in connexion with the Burdiehouse Limestone, in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.
